leave your things behind
by Caliente
Summary: one-shot character study introducing Elizabeth Dehner to nu!Trek canon –– Elizabeth has always had a plan. Then Vulcan is destroyed and things aren't so simple anymore.


**Author's Note: **This was going to be for the where_no_woman fic exchange on lj but it didn't end up long enough, so I'm just posting it for fun. For those who don't know, Elizabeth Dehner appeared in (and was killed during) the TOS episode _Where No Man Has Gone Before_. Title is from Frou Frou's song _Let Go_, which is in no way mine. Unbeta'd, sorry, so please let me know if there are mistakes. Cheers!**  
****Disclaimer:** Characters mentioned are used without permission and are trademarks of CBS/Gene Roddenberry. I do not own them and am simply borrowing for my purposes. Please don't sue.

**leave your things behind  
**by Bether**  
**

Elizabeth Dehner has always had a _plan_. She's interested in people, so she chooses to study psychology. It doesn't take long for her to decide she _isn't_ interested in actually interacting with said people much (she doesn't like all the touchy-feely nonsense—it's not her thing), so she makes research her primary focus. All through high school, college and med school she makes the grades because she wants to be the _best_.

Hers isn't the petty kind of want, though. She doesn't care about being better than anyone else, either. She's going to discover new things about the way the human mind works and then her name is going to be published in books years after she's gone because her contributions to psychology are going to _matter_. Professors will teach classes on her works and students will aspire to be the next _her_.

It's all part of the plan. And Elizabeth has always been very good at following through as a means of getting what she wants.

That all ends with the destruction of Vulcan.

Elizabeth is in her lab, reviewing research done on long-term space travel subjects when she hears the news. She's read about tragedies on the same scale but the destruction of an entire _planet?_ That's something that takes time for her to wrap her head around.

Days later she's in San Francisco. She has no idea why she's there or what she's doing and it's a completely unfamiliar feeling. This is _not_ part of the plan; this is… something else. Something spontaneous and, see, Elizabeth doesn't make spontaneous decisions, so she's pretty much at a loss to understand what's going on and why. But she's there, so she goes to Starfleet Command and, somehow, that makes it all real for her.

By the end of that first day, Elizabeth has joined Starfleet. Years later, she still won't be able to articulate the whys behind her decision, although working with the organizations has always been on her To Do list. (Where better to study the effects of space travel than with the people most likely to allow her freedom to conduct scientific studies on their spaceships?) It's just that joining now before she's published anything or made any big contributions is a different thing.

See, Starfleet will let her continue her research, that's never in question. (They're as much about scientific discovery as plain old space exploration, after all.) It's just that they want her to go through basic training and to work as part of the medical staff, which is basically the exact thing she never really wanted to do.

Except that Elizabeth has this heavy feeling in her chest—has had it since Vulcan was destroyed, actually—and she suspects it's a sign that she's gaining some real empathy for others. Clinical has always been the easiest way to describe her but now? Now when she sees the Vulcans walking around San Francisco she does more than spot psychoanalyze them; now she actually _feels_ for them. (She's even cried a couple times, although she's never admitting _that_ to anyone.)

It takes her a year to complete the expedited officer's medical training and, when she's finished, her advisor gives her an exit interview of sorts. This is the make-or-break it for most cadets; the moment when they have their final shot to try and get whatever assignment it is they've been dreaming of. Elizabeth doesn't have anything like that. She only has her new plan—the one where she continues her research but because she wants to help people, not for the glory or whatever else it was driving her before.

She knows that without all the accomplishments she planned on having before joining Starfleet, her chances at getting to do what she wants to are much slimmer. Elizabeth finds she doesn't mind nearly as much as she might've, though. She's pretty sure she's a better person now—a _real _person, whole and feeling. She thinks that's worth the trade off. (Even if the old her probably wouldn't.)


End file.
